Add Existing Swimlanes and Cards

Add Cards from the Backlog

The first and most useful practice in agile is adding swimlanes and cards to the sprint from the
backlog.

To add cards from the backlog:

Select the sprint that you wish to plan in the sprints drop-down.

Click the button to open the backlog of your board in the side bar.
The default backlog that you set up when you created the board is displayed. You can also use any available
saved search as the backlog: Click the name of the backlog in the toolbar and select another saved search to show as the backlog.

Only the saved searches that you have pinned in the sidebar on the Issues list are displayed in the backlog drop-down.

Drag cards to the board, or select one or several cards in the backlog and add them to the current
sprint:

Click the
button for each card in the backlog that you want to add to the sprint.

Click the Add to sprint button in the bottom toolbar to open the command
window
with the pre-filled command to add selected cards to the sprint:

Selected cards are added to the current sprint. A card that matches settings of the board swimlanes
is displayed as a swimlane.
Cards that are assigned to a sprint are marked with a tag with the sprint name.

Sometimes you also might need to add either new or an existing task to a swimlane.
In this case, please refer to the Adding tasks to a story section
below.

Add Swimlanes and Cards with Commands

In addition to dragging cards from the backlog, sometimes you might need to add some arbitrary issues
that are not in the backlog to the board. You can do it in the Issues list using commands.

We suggest you to use the following workflow:

Open the Issues list.

Use search query to find issues that are not on the board yet. The key search attribute in this case is:

has:-{Board<boardname>}

For example, you wish to check if there are any unresolved critical issues in the projects associated with the board (let's say, project id's are CSS and CMS) and not yet put to the board "CMS Scrum":

#Unresolved #Critical project: CSS, CMS -{Board CMS Scrum}

In the issue list, select issues that you need to put on the board and apply the command:

board<boardname><sprintname>

Continuing the example above, let's say you need to put selected issues to the sprint "Sprint-2 Leads Management" of the board. The command should look like:

boardSMSScrumSprint-2LeadsManagement

Create New Swimlanes and Cards on the Board

Create a Swimlane

If required, you can not only move a swimlane to the board from the backlog, but also create a swimlane
right on the board in a sprint.

To create a new swimlane on the board:

Open the required sprint.

Click the Create button in the main menu, then select Swimlane
from the list. Otherwise, click the New swimlane... button in the bottom
toolbar.
You can also use keyboard shortcut.

The new issue dialog is displayed.

The field that is selected to define swimlanes for the board is set automatically. If more
than one value can define a swimlane, then the first value in the list in the Cards
ands Rows
tab of the board settings.

The project field is also set automatically. If more than one project is associated with the
board, then the first board project is selected.

In the Create new swimlane dialog, specify the summary and description of the
new swimlane, and configure other required parameters. The summary is shown as swimlane's name.

Click the Add swimlane button to put the new swimlane to the current sprint. If
you wish to further customize attributes of the swimlane, click the
Add and open
button. In this case, the swimlane is added to current sprint and the full-issue dialog is open.

Create a New Card

On the board, you can create new cards for existing swimlanes or as orphans.

In the Orphans or another swimlane, to which you need to add task, click the icon in any of the board columns. The card will be created in that particular column. In YouTrack terms, it means that the corresponding value will be set for the field that defines board columns.

Enter the Summary and Description of the new card. If required, customize other fields.

Click the Add card button to add the new card to the swimlane in the selected column. If you wish to further customize the card, click the
Add and open button. In this case, the card is added to the swimlane and opened as the full-issue dialog.
In YouTrack, this new card issue is also automatically linked to the swimlane issue as the "subtask of".

Estimate Cards

In YouTrack, we provide estimation for tasks only, not swimlanes. Estimation for a swimlane (a story) is the sum of all estimates of its tasks.
Please note, that, at the moment, the summary estimation value for a swimlane is not displayed, and is not accounted in any report.

Before estimating tasks on the board, you should specify an issue field to be used as Estimation, in the Board Settings.
When the Estimation field is configured, it is shown at the upper-right corner of the task card.

By default, the "empty" value of the selected field is shown on the task card (for example, "No Estimation" or other empty value that is configured for the field used for Estimation).

To estimate a task, click on the Estimation field and enter a value.

Prioritize the Sprint

Prioritizing sprint is easy: Drag swimlanes and cards and place them in the desired order.
However, please note that the order of swimlanes and cards on a board,
does not affect neither issues order in the same context on the Issues list nor any issue attribute, like Priority.
Prioritizing the sprint on board is per se a visual setting.